Eldon Kika
My Final Outcome
In my Final Outcome I have been inspired by Magdiel use of visual effects and colourful gradients, Alberto Seveso's use of rich, vibrant colours of paint and capturing their movement, Simrah's use of strong women of colour and strong messages to draw attention to the subject by the use of bold Pakistani outfits to make the models stand out. I have done this because it highlights the unique ways my three artists use colour that relate to the special nature of fairytales.
All three of my specialists use colours in several ways which presents the distinction and speciality of fantasies. Magdiel implements more soaked, vaporwave and pastel colours while Alberto Seveso implememts wealthy, dynamic coloured paints in water whereas Simrah compares colours to form the subject stand out, using soft and also bold colours.
The idea behind my final piece is linking to the lack of representation of SA women in the media, like to colourism and women, creating a more political message to my work. Growing up, there was a lack of representation in Disney movies and fairytales which would have been a problem for many young children as they had so sense of inclusion. However, one that stood out to me was Aladdin- it represented Arab and South Asian cultures and those of brown backgrounds were able to feel represented and have a character they could relate to. This was a big change in the media as most Disney princesses were the usual beauty standards of our generation, with fair white skin. Jasmine changed this and showed how strong women of colour are, and especially in the live action remake of Aladdin, she shows women don’t need the cliche plot of a man needing to change their life and always be the hero. Culture makes up a large part of our generation, especially as we live in such a diverse country and SA culture always fascinated me due to its bold colours. I have chosen to use the influence of Simrah and Jasmine from Aladdin to represent fierce brown women, alongside Lopez and Seveso’s manipulation and pop of colour. Through the use of these specific themes, I aim to create a more modern fairy tale where the younger generation feels more represented and empowered.
To edit my animation I opened it in Adobe Photoshop and I increased the contrast and brightness of the image, and used curve layers to improve the shadows and highlights of the image, to bring out my model’s skin tone, and tones of their outfit. I used the magic wand tool to remove the original background of the subject so that I could use a gradient background like Magdiel does. I used the pen tool to make selections on the face and cut them out so that they could be filled with purple flowers, adding a whimsical element to the picture as well as engrossing the viewer and compelled them to focus on the subject. I also added text to the sides of the image, which is something Magdiel frequently does in his work as it creates a perfect poster effect. The text I used matched quotes from Aladdin by princess Jasmine, which added to the fair take aspect and also influenced the aspect of the strength of women, as it was quoted by Jasmine during a song about her strength and independence, and how she can’t be silenced. I then added an image of a lamp and removed the background to keep the inspiration of Aladdin going.
To implement the compositional rule of contrast, I added a bright green and blue background to contrast Simrah's use of warm colours. I improved the shadows and highlights of the image of the image using the curves layer to enhance the lighting of the image, like Simrah does.
To edit my paint video, I opened it in Premiere Pro and changed the blending mode to overlay to have the paint behind the subject. I rotated the image to make it look like the paint is coming out of the lamp referring to the genie from Aladdin. This captured the seamless movement of paint hence replicating the delicacy of paint which is depicted in Alberto's work. For my audio, I decided to use Bad Girls by M.I.A as it is a good representation as the artist is a brown girl herself and speaks about strong women and how fierce they are, referring to them as 'bad girls', linking to my project, empowering and representing women.
As shown below, I did a draft of my final piece and used two SA women together to show strong and fierce women/'bad girls' but then decided to change it to a singular model to show their independence and how they don't need anyone for them to be heard.
I have been really pleased with my final piece as I have implemented all of my artist's unique ways of using colour. For example, the contrast between the colour of the outfit and my model's skin tone to the bright and popping gradients and coloured texts and boarder. I have also implemented Magdiel's playful editing style by having flowers coming out from the face and also adding a colourful gradient as a background giving the picture a more joyful and vibrant tone. The seamless movement of the bright blue and green paint is striking and links to Alberto's use of vibrant paints and capturing their movements. The blue paint also links to the story's magical lamp, where the genie is freed as smoke, which i linked to women being freed from their shell and their oppression, adding a sense of fantasy from the bizarreness of the fictional world connecting to the magical aspect of fairy tales therefore contributing to my theme of strange and fantastical but also acknowledging serious topic. I believe my work shows the strength of SA women and gives them a sense of representation, as the movie Aladdin does. I have also implemented formal elements of colour and focus to add more focus to the subject to give more significance to the subject. This relates to my theme of strange and fantastical because the unique methods by which I have used colour make the image very unusual and distinctive, attracting the viewer's attention and I successfully included the idea of fairy tales, imagery and fantasy..